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The 1%? All A Board

The Burning Man Project is now the 100% shareholder of Black Rock City, LLC, which puts on the Burning Man event. A Board of Directors of 18 people is responsible for the Burning Man Project. Founder Will Roger is the Chairman.

SherpaGate and all the attention from the New York Times and Bloomberg has highlighted Burning Man’s place on the world stage as a playground for rich people. In the past, how much money you had was never an issue at Burning Man. Nobody cared, because money did not exist in this environment. Tickets were based on Burners splitting the costs of the permit and the infrastructure for putting on the party – like a mega-version of camp dues. The art was more about amusement and light-hearted entertainment, than impressing and out-doing.

Now, ticket prices increase almost every year, new taxes get invented like the vehicle pass, directors run Commodification Camps, there are 85 registered vendors, there’s a gas station for art cars, camps get daily fresh food deliveries from beeping trucks, and a whole eco-system of businesses has popped up renting yurts, containers and RVs to Burners.

Why is Burning Man morphing from an anarchists wet dream to shark-jumping Defaultification?

Why does the Board seem to think there’s nothing wrong with directors trying to make a few bucks on the side?

Perhaps it’s because the Board are the 1% themselves.

“It’s not a thoughtless amassing of rich folks,” says Harvey of the expanded board. “But if you want to change the world, you’d better get some people who have real muscular power.” [Bloomberg]

It doesn’t look like they’re using that muscular power to Gift very much in the way of donations, but they are providing their time without drawing salaries. The average time commitment from the non-executive directors in 2013 was 2.3 hours per week. In 2013, the Burning Man Project received a total of $33,500 in donations from its 17 board members – an average of $1970. Director Chris Weitz stepped down last year and was replaced by Jim Tananbaum and Matt Goldberg, bringing the board size up to 18 .

It sure looks like 11 of the 12 Burning Man Project “independent” directors are members of the 1%.

Perhaps I am wrong about Kay Morrison, and she is wealthy and just enjoys working in retail. I mean no offense to any of the directors by this classification, and I believe that this whole “1%” thing is bullshit anyway. Just a lame attempt to foment a class war, Burning Man with its dark army of dirtbags as the front lines of a Marxist Cacophonist revolution.

Larry has said his mission is to reform the 1%. Another clue as to who this culture is being aimed at by its directors. He’s gone from saying “income equality is a straw man argument”, to making that same argument, and now making reinforcement of the class war his new mission.

Sherpa Beth says: “rather than re-educating the 1 Percent, the camp was only reinforcing the class divisions of the real world.”

The idea of the $17,000 Caravancicle hotel rooms being a re-education camp for the elite is amusing. For every billionaire playboy having a life changing experience and vowing to put solar panels on all his buildings and get some glowy art on the wall of his office…there will be one next door who’s just there for the coke and hookers. Do either of them want to be re-educated by the hotel’s hippie sherpa squad? I think not. Methinks some of these people have been spending too much time at Esalen – most people don’t go to an expensive hotel expecting to be told how they’re doing it wrong.

With such a well to do crew aboard the Board, booming revenues that don’t flow through to art funding, the frequent requests for donations, the lack of transparency and accountability, the deliberate use of propaganda to influence the community…is it any wonder that veteran Burners have concerns about creeping commercialization in our culture?

When BMOrg announced the “transition to a non-profit” four years ago, you could still walk into stores in San Francisco and Reno and buy tickets. The cheapest regular ticket was $222, Burners were asked to pay more if they could afford to. Since then, ticket prices have more than doubled to $459 (including fees and vehicle pass). The business has scaled up too. In 2010 Burning Man took in $13.5 million selling tickets, now their revenues are above $30 million. The more they put ticket prices up and invent new revenue streams, the more Burning Man becomes harder to attend unless you have money to burn – or work for someone who does.

Most of the world do not have money to burn on a hedonistic week long vacation, where they just give stuff away to people. Statistically speaking, Burners have a median income of US$51,000, which puts them in the 1% – in fact, the top 0.3% in the US. Another study by Cornell University says that for 2010, the required income to be part of the 1% was $322,300. 2.4% of Burners are in that range.

If the 1% are actually 2-3% of Black Rock City, then they are disproportionately represented: meaning, Burning Man “skews rich”. With a Board composed of 1%ers, on a mission to reform the 1% by bringing new virgins in to Burning Man for acculturation, it seems like that this number is only going to grow along with the ticket prices.

If more wealth = more art and more gifting, then that’s great news. Come all ye wealthy, and gift us yer offerings. What’s more of a concern is if it means a move away from Radical Self-Reliance and Decommodification towards a more Vegas-style party experience, models on molly locked out of reach of the masses behind wristbands and velvet ropes. I’m not knocking Vegas in particular, we live in a world full of superclubs and there’s a lot of fun to be had in them – especially if you have the right wristbands. Whether a $2000 minimum spend VIP table is more fun than a $500 one is beside the point – it’s all excessive, but also all relative. I think nothing of buying a coffee at Starbucks, and in the same way Bill Gates thinks nothing of spending $5 million for a week on someone else’s yacht.

Bill Gates would have to give up a week on this to go to Burning Man. It comes with a submarine, 2 helipads, 3 swimming pools, and 50 sherpas. Image by the author.

I believe Burning Man has always offered something unique and different from the default world divisions of cash and class. People are expressing themselves freely in a money-free environment. It’s about art, a playful spirit, and entertaining each other. It should stay that way.

If you’re at a place of freedom trying to have a good time and forget about money, you don’t want to witness safari tourists having a row over their wheelie luggage, or a disgruntled Popsicleer wondering why his Mistress of Merriment wandered off, a sherpa being castigated by their boss, or the princess upset with her handmaiden because her personal porcelain toilet got dirty. These are interactions that would be appalling to witness in the Default world, and are doubly jarring in an environment supposed to be about freedom. In Defaultia they usually happen behind closed doors. There are far fewer closed doors at Burning Man, everyone lives very close to their neighbors. Lately the neighbors of many Commodification Camps have been complaining.

People say “it’s fine, I don’t even see it” – OK, then let’s just say “it’s fine”. It’s either in or out. If it’s allowed then allow it, if it’s not allowed then it shouldn’t be happening. And most definitely, members of the Board of Directors should not be selling hotel rooms in their camp. If they’re going to, then let everyone do that. Stop Selective Rule Enforcement.

It seems almost bizarre that Larry Harvey is trying to conflate the Commodification Camp Controversy with the issues behind the #occupy movement. It’s quite a stretch. “People have been frustrated by Wall Street’s blatant financial crimes with nobody going to jail, so Burning Man’s directors should be able to hire 50 sherpas for their ComCamp”. This is a non sequitur.

The issue is not how much money any Burners have or don’t have. It’s Commodification – of people, when money puts one bound into the service of another. We’re trying to achieve the opposite of that at Burning Man. Liberation. Manumission. Defaultification – bringing more and more of the Default world into the Nevada Burn – is not going to make Burning Man better. So should we just make Burning Man worse, because it’s so important to bring 40% virgins in? Or should we reconsider some of these goals? Couldn’t we still make it better with just 20% virgins every year?

Radical inclusion shouldn’t mean “we let any dickhead in the gate, so Burners now have to guard their camps from criminals”. It shouldn’t mean “we don’t care if our friends can’t get tickets, but friends of board members can get all the tickets they want”. It should mean “anyone can be a Burner, if they bother to learn our culture”. Placed camps should provide a strong interactive component, and Commodification Camp producers should encourage their clientele to participate and contribute art. If you must sell a room in your camp for thousands of dollars, then re-cycle some of that money back into the community by supporting art projects directly.

Does the rise of the sherpa class mean that impecunious Burners now have a chance to go to Burning Man, because they can take a job there? Shouldn’t you be able to work at Burning Man if you want to and need the money? What about people who want to live Burning Man “year round”? Shouldn’t we be encouraging them, with opportunities for paid work on art projects? Isn’t the enablement of art more important than its destruction?

If we must have sherpas, then perhaps there’s a way to limit their impact, while still doing some good for the overall community. What if sherpas required a special ticket? The number of these tickets could be limited, and the premium price charged for them could be passed on to the volunteer workers in DPW and other departments who build the city. Let the volunteers choose whether they want to take the money, or Gift it to art projects or the Burning Man Project. Just like 4000 pre-sale tickets at $800 subsidize 4000 low-income tickets at $190, the surplus from 4000 sherpa tickets at $800 would provide $410 each to 4000 volunteer workers – or $10,000 art grants to an additional 164 projects .

Camp Caravancicle was not the first of its kind, and over the last few years many fervent Burners have come to believe such accommodations are covertly commercial, unfairly gobble up many of the event’s limited number of tickets, and violate various Burning Man principles, such as participation and radical self-reliance

Pretty straightforward. Nothing to do with Wall Street, class war, or ebola virus. Bloomberg seem to be presenting the facts without any spin, which is refreshing. Check out their 5-minute video story.

Does Larry Harvey get it? Is it about what he wants, or what WE want?:

“I want to convince people that it isn’t as if the 1 Percent represents an evil bacillus that like Ebola will sweep through our city,” he says. “That’s not possible. Much of the anger is because of a feeling of impotency. The whole issue of the 1 Percent has been a matter of public discourse for some time now, and nothing has changed. People are frustrated. … My mission is to reform the 1 Percent.”

The gardener says his mission is to reform the 1%. No offense to gardeners everywhere, but I think he’s out of his league. A noble goal to be sure, but that ambitious intention doesn’t seem to have worked out catering to Jim Tananbaum

He has a point. This “landscape gardener turned party promoter wants to make billionaires change their ways” story is eerily reminiscent of the classic Peter Sellers movie Being There.

Or maybe the Lawnmower Man:

It sure is starting to look dystopian. A plutocratic techno dictatorship, operating in secrecy while collecting profiles on all of its citizens; fuelling its growth with mind-bending drugs, social media, and celebrity endorsements.

Macmikem: A group I knew was told to GO AWAY you are not part of our CAMP. This, from some tard at Tannabuam’s circle jerk.

thalassicus : I was in a bar in Venice for Superbowl Sunday and struck up a conversation with a girl who ended up being another “Sherpa.” She actually camped with Lost Hotel and part of her work was the setup/teardown of Caravancicle. She says that the Lost Hotel people are currently being sued by Tananbaum for breach of a 3 year contract (sadly, a lot of the gear of the sherpas is being held in limbo in the process). If that’s true, it seems Mr. Apologetic board member is still very much at a loss as to what Burning Man is about.

marssaxman:the problem is not the money, the problem is that Burning Man is fundamentally about amateurism and DIY. Nobody cares that you’re an accountant in real life, on the playa you can be a bartender. Nobody cares that you’re a diesel mechanic in real life, on the playa you can glam it up and strut your stuff like a model. Nobody cares that you’re a software engineer in real life, on the playa you can sweat your ass off building a twenty foot tower with a bunch of searchlights powered by bicycle generators and people will go hey, wow, that’s ART. And you get to be an artist.

This is revolutionary and awesome and an irreplaceable part of what has made Burning Man special and worth going back to and investing so much time and money in.

The problem with the turnkey camps is less that they are inhabited by rich people full of money and more that they cart in all the limitations of the real world along with them and thereby devalue amateur enthusiasm. Instead of destroying real-world roles and limitations and economic structures, they’re bringing them along into BRC and thereby changing the character of the event. If half the art cars roaming around are built by pros with budgets, how can a DIY team possibly measure up? And if it’s no longer possible for a bunch of random friends to get together and build something in their back yards and bring it out to the desert and get the amazing rush when everyone else goes “wow”, what is the point of this whole thing anymore?

It’s not the rich people, it’s the abandonment of the amateur philosophy and the DIY ethic that makes the turnkey camps such a corrosive influence on the awesomeness of the burn.

solaronzim: I would say even DIY with big budgets is okay as long as everyone is getting involved. I say this because it isn’t about competition. It’s about expression. And what the great larry was quoted saying about manners is spot on. In my eyes its rude that every camp on esplanade plays music at levels that damage hearing. That used to be limited to 10 and 2. Its rude that you won’t serve certain people. Its rude that you treat people doting on you as servants. I have friends on billionaires road that make art, contribute to the party, don’t exclude everyone, and pick up after themselves. Oh and they have help too, but theyre also our friends. So we all party together. Imagine that.

markday:“Wealth” covers a lot of ground in the vaguest of ways, but the notion that “Jim Tananbaum has become the Google Bus of Burning Man” squarely and concisely nails a narrative that’s a fairly hot button issue in the Bay Area. Does that resentment tangibly exist in the Bay Area? Yes. Does a similar tension exist around the notion of concierge camps? Yes. Are journalists often looking for parallels…?

For, say, the business press, the notion that BM is actively courting “influential” board members, from the venture capital/start up world, is part of a larger narrative that they already report on, and I’m not sure what alternative reporting would look like : “Burning Man is an event that most attendees agree you can’t really understand until you’ve been there, and as it turns out, some attendees have been paying employees to do their dirty work for them, which is against the spirit of the experience that you can’t really understand unless you’ve been there, but take our word for it, people who have been there are not happy with this, and while the people in question are “wealthy and influential”, that’s not the issue, so much as it is that they hired some people, they’d be equally annoyed if some no-names from not-the-Bay Area had turned up with a small catering crew, and…. um…. wait a minute, why are we covering this again?”

I generally agree that “radical inclusiveness, man!” is a weak-sauce shield in this instance, and that a lot of people’s unhappiness is not about wealth per se. But I think a reasonable reading of that article would include the implicit notion that VIP wrist bands are frowned upon, that it was a shit-show of a camp, and so on: “Instead of a spirit of inclusiveness and harmony, Lillie says she found herself in an environment dedicated foremost to protecting the VIP status of its wealthy inhabitants. Paying guests were outfitted with wristbands like patrons in an exclusive nightclub.”

It may be the case that these tensions are not about money, but the ability to pay for these kind of things at a highly visible/exclusionary level is certainly fueling tension in a way that “some guy two camps over got gifted a ticket in return for driving the truck, then found out people expected him to be the designated sober art car driver all night, and that was never talked about up front….” hypothetically goes unnoticed. Not disagreeing with other people’s points here, but it’s “better reporting than I’d have expected.” I’d liked to have seen more commentary from people like Tex Allen (disclosure : I know Tex), but all in all, it covered a lot of ground.

I think that you nailed this. The income inequality is a really hot button issues in national discourse, and writing this story in that perspective is probably a lot more relevant to people who don’t go to burning man. Taking off my burner hat for a second, and putting on my journalist hat (I am not a journalist) that is pretty clear. “A couple of rich guys went to a party in the desert, acted like assholes, and left a mess” is not a story worthy of Bloomberg.

But putting my burner hat back on I think that we need to emphasize that this doesn’t need to be talked about just in terms of identity politics, but about community behavior.

Yes, the problems are about money (at least some of them), but that doesn’t mean that the problems are about wealth or opulence. They are about behavior.

In the default world having money means that you get to treat people as things or as means to things. Not being able to spend money at burning man historically has given it’s participants a brief window where that dynamic is put in it’s head.

What the community is finding offensive is that rather then bringing 1%ers to burning man, 1%ers have been systemically allowed to bring defaultia to burning man.

But money is like water on pavement, it always find the cracks. And the BMorg’s new board is apparently a big fucking crack. They expanded the board from 6 to 18 people (I think, correct me if I’m wrong). I don’t know how they chose their new board members, but if it’s anything like other non-profits that I have known, those seats are given to large donors.

doctor-yes: I have a friend who was in that camp, and I didn’t realize it until after we got back from the Burn this year He had a great time, but he also stayed with Jim’s camp in 2013 – his first time on the playa, and he was only there for 3 days. He’s comfortable but not wealthy enough to afford the cost, and I believe it was gifted enough to him both years. So the only experience he’s ever had at Burning Man is in these highly-catered camps. He spoke highly of the Mistresses of Merriment his first year, for instance, which made me cringe internally, but I didn’t draw a line between the two until post-Burn this year.

The problem to me is that the camp appeared to do nothing to acculturate newcomers, instead allowing them to be pampered and experience BM from behind the velvet rope. I don’t think it’s even about what some of the guests themselves expect. My friend, for instance, had no idea what to expect. This was just how Burning Man was from his experience.

After I gently talked to him about it, I discovered he’d had no idea it was potentially controversial. He only discovered it after the fact. He’s an older guy (65+) but is constantly going to concerts of all kinds, music festivals, etc, and is very cool to hang out with. Not the kind of douchebag you might think exclusively inhabits these camps.

That’s just one person of course, and I haven’t tried to press him too much for details to avoid embarrassing him further, but I just wonder how much blame we can put on the participants in the camp (and whatever expectations they had) vs. the organizers of it, who framed the entire event for birgins in the camp through the lens they chose.

HotterRod: “The problem to me is that the camp appeared to do nothing to acculturate newcomers”

Larry Harvey admits that he didn’t do anything to acculturate external members of the Project Board, so I guess Tananbaum just paid the cluelessness forward.

Thought from another thread about the BOrg, their NPD behavior, and the BoD they chose….

“After all, how else can you explain the BOrg BoD? Of course Larry & Co provided their own NPD supplies by being impressed by whom they chose, but the directors must have known what was going on. In fact, I am surprised that none of them complained that the BoD was not representative for the event. On the contrary, that they did not complain about who were members of their little club speaks volumes to whom they are.”

For me, most of this BOrg/BMP/BoD analysis is a colonoscopy of a dead horse, but in broader application to life (the default world that the NV burn has become), it is interesting how people want to be in a privileged class even in these volunteer/”non-profit” (sic) organizations. When most people are giving their own money and time to volunteer, some people still seek to be special – greater among equals. It is ironic how this attitude is against the very premise of the organization.

I wonder if they are just immature, or if this is some fundamental personality disorder. What is missing in their lives that makes them feel the need to be “over” others who are not paid to be under them. Is it just a carryover from the paid corporate world, or is there some old childhood battle they are fighting?

All I know is that you get so much more from these volunteer experiences when you respect the other volunteers and realize that they are only there because of the same desire to give and share. So sad.

It’s absolutely a personality thing. Some people can’t function without scoping for an angle, a way to get over on other people. Chip Conley’ “peak experience” bullshit is just a pseudo-spiritual euphemism for “VIP experience.” I mean, how else can you explain going to fucking Burning Man and think, this isn’t a peak enough experience?

LOL!!! You got me 🙂
with theBurners may also be interested in this site: tananburn.me
I went and looked at https://tananburn.me/blog/ and at first… and then…. and then… lmao. Good one! There are too many great quotes to post only one here.

BM is not even a shell of what it was10 years ago. BM is nothing more than a profit machine, Mardi Gras style Party in the desert. Cut the crap. Drop the no money bullshit. Enough with the gifting community bullshit. Enough with the transformation enlightening bullshit. Everyone just stop saying and using the word decommodification. Enough with the no money on the playa lie.

Can everyone on the planet just quit lying? Is that possible?
Stop telling lies to yourselves stop telling lies to other people.

Burning Man is now a profit zone. BM sold out. BM sold its soul. And it is time to just admit it. Do you hear that Larry? STFU Larry with your continued drivel and spin doctor crap. Just call a pig a pig and lets all move on. As long as the BLM gets its cut no one cares.

There is nothing mystical or magical about BM anymore. It is past time to just admit BM is basically a place in the desert to do rave drugs and party for a week. I mean, if for old times sake some people wanna gift shit, go ahead, but enough with the “gifting society” crap. It is long over.

It’s at a point (and it’s been this way for years) that you cannot trust the sincerity of the participants. People out there ‘act’ like they think burners should act. It’s like a party in the Marina where everyone is nice to your face (because ‘we’re hippies now’) just long enough to get enough information on you to slag you off when you’re out of ear-shot. The demographic has been almost completely replaced with these poseurs.

And I’m supposed to build an art car and theme camp and serve drinks to these people? These people who get peeved when I don’t have mixers on Patron night?

I have one of those walki-talkies that used to work before everyone used the same channels. You can have endless fun listening to groups trying to meet up on any given night and the shit they say about the ‘randoms’ they encounter. It’s great insight into the minds of the new burner demographic. You have to be drunk to see the humor, though. Otherwise you’ll want to find these people and shove the walki-talkie down their throats.

Exactly Jackson. There was a time when BM really had a beautiful thing going on out on the playa, but those days are long gone.

People still saying “Indoctrinate the noobs on how it should work”? Stop it already.
It is a money grab these days on the playa and if everyone would just admit it it would be more healthy.

The rich boy camps are excluding? Of course they are….. Can you use my camps private crapper? No you can not….. You work on gate or DPW and you think you are better than most everyone out there? Of course you do…. Larry and his creepy pals think they are better then most people on the playa and want to be away from most of them? Of course they do……. There are different classes of people on the playa? Yes, there are…. Should money be legal to be used on the playa? Yes, it should… Has real life society and its rules come to the playa? Yes and the sooner everyone just admits and moves forward the better it will all be.

There are new groups and outings sprouting up around the country that seem to want to carry on the early values of gifting and togetherness and keeping out the default world rules for a week long gathering…. but that no long is how it works at burning man, but I am sure Larry and his creepy, greedy, lying, money grubbing board will keep selling the lie that BM is like it was in 1998 as long as they can, because that is how the 1% thinks and operates…. and it seems the 99% (actually the 90-99%) are lining up with baited breath groveling to pay for their fuking over priced BM tickets.

Kudos on an awesome post. The prior fall, on their website, the BMOrg changed the profiles of the members of the Project board to state their Burner credentials and hiding their corporate credentials. It is good of Larry to admit of they are on the Project board in due of “It’s not a thoughtless amassing of rich folks,”, “But if you want to change the world, you’d better get some people who have real muscular power.”

The next step is to admit some are on the Project board in due of they are a reliable vote in the support of whatever Larry and Marian might desire, in the manner of being CEO and President of the Project, and their desire in regards of no independent directors are to be on the BRC LLC Burning Man board providing parental supervision over them, which, perchance, might have halted their fuck up with the playa art for 2015, and force decisions to be made in regards of the needs of the Burning Man communities.

The next step is to admit they laboured to change the Burner population towards people whom desire plug and play and concierge camps, camps of venture capitalists and their mates, and 40 per cent newbies each year, in replacement of the prior Burner communities, with near to solely one of four people venturing to the playa more than three times prior.

he is on the board. In this post I am just looking at the 12 independent directors. The 6 Founders may or may not be in the 1% – they haven’t disclosed all the details of their transactions, so we can’t tell. Being able to afford to give away more than $1 million each is one indicator.

John Law left in 1996, after Helco. He was dragged into court last decade due to his ownership of Paperman LLC, an earlier trademark holder, because of a lawsuit between Larry Harvey and Michael Mikel.

It’s a shame a boycott would backfire on us. If the long-time burners boycotted, the event would just fill with virgins that don’t know any better. That would only speed the journey towards becoming yet another outdoor festival.

Had myself a special code in the directed sale, and picked up 140 tickets for me and my closest plutocrats. That $15 surcharge people complained about is nothing divided by 140 and then bundled into a $20k package deal. 🙂

I hear the soul of Burning Man can still be found out in the fringes. Somewhere around 4:00 and something called walk-in. Sounds like a nice place to build some condos or maybe a little gated community.

Love da’ Hats adjective……muscular. A better person than me could read those quotes from the Oracle…..wouldn’t take much. Nothing profound except to “reform the 1%”……inhaled too much Playa dust….the latter did a number on my doggies (ok, I went barefoot alot despite the admonishments). Emerged smarter and wiley-er to the ways of Kumbaya…..